The project is a part of a broad, international multicenter study. Fredrik Strand, breast radiologist and researcher at Medtechlabs, is awarded SEK 4 million from Horizon Europe as one of several participants in the RadioVal project, who received a total grant of SEK 60 million.
RadioVal is the first broad multicenter study of radiomics-driven clinical evaluation of neoadjuvant therapy response to breast cancer. The project is based on tools and repositories of images created within five EU-funded projects from the AI for Health Imaging network (AI4HI). To evaluate usability and transferability, validation will take place in eight different centres in Sweden, Austria, Spain, Poland, Croatia, Argentina, Egypt and Turkey.
"Stockholm wants to host one of the largest international congresses on medical technology. The plan is part of the ambition to become one of the most prominent regions in life science in the world. - It is completely in line with what Stockholm city and region want, says Niklas Roxhed, research leader for Medtechlabs and assistant professor at KTH, to Life Science Sweden."
The Radiology part of the program Breast Cancer Imaging program powered by AI Diagnostics, with Research leaders Kevin Smith, KTH and Fredrik Strand, Karolinska Institutet have been granted funding by the WASP and DDLS Joint call for research projects with SEK 3 875 000 for two years.
The project Transforming Breast Cancer (TransformBC) will recruit two postdocs starting April 1 2022. The first position with a focus on the development of new AI algorithms (KTH from WASP) and the second with a focus on clinical validation of the AI algorithms (KI from DDLS).
The Wallenberg AI, Autonomous Systems and Software Program (WASP) is a major national initiative for strategically motivated basic research, education and faculty recruitment. It is by far the largest individual research program in Sweden.
The SciLifeLab and Wallenberg National Program for Data-Driven Life Science (DDLS) is an initiative to handle that the amount and complexity of data is growing exponentially, and that more scientific discoveries are enabled when data is openly available to researchers across the world.
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MedTechLabs Newsletter October 2020
MedTechLabs has had an intense but rewarding year and here we point out some of the highlights.
Centre Highlights 2021
1. The new CT-lab opened. On Friday 29 October, we inaugurated our new CT laboratory at BioClinicum, Karolinska University Hospital in Solna. Read more here
2. MedTechLabs Fellows Jeroen Goos and Mats Persson were awarded with Swedish Research Council´s starting Grant. Each 4-year Grant amounts to 4 million SEK. Read more here and here
3. MedTechLabs Research leaders, Johan Hartman and Mattias Rantalainen, were granted 20 million SEK from Vinnova, for clinical implementation of new diagnostic solutions based on AI for breast cancer pathology. Read more here
4. MedTechLabs Research leaders Hans Blom and Sigrid Lundberg, newly affiliated to MedTechLabs with the project “Optical 3D microscopy for more effective diagnosis of kidney diseases”, achieved 1,56 million SEK from the Torsten Söderberg Foundation. Read more here
5. Analysis of the strengths of patents generated by the research leaders in the Spectral CT-imaging and Endovascular Techniques within MedTechLabs, showed to be on par with world class environments at Mayo Clinic, Johns Hopkins University and Harvard University. Read more here
6. MedTechLabs Research leaders Peder Olofsson and Henrik Hult achieved a donation by the foundation Stockholm Pandemic Resilience to the project “Enhanced diagnose of patients with long COVID” within the Bioelectronic Medicine program. Read more here
1,56 million swedish crowns in funding for the project "Optical 3D microscopy for more effective diagnosis of kidney diseases".
It is with great joy we can announce that the Torsten Söderberg Foundation has granted 1,56 million swedish crowns in funding for the project “Optical 3D microscopy for more effective diagnosis of kidney diseases” at MedTechLabs. The project is lead by Sigrid Lundberg, MD, Renal Researcher/ nephrologist, KI / KS Danderyd and Hans Blom, Associate Professor, KTH / Scilifelab. Read more about the project here
On Friday 29 October, we inaugurated our new CT laboratory at BioClinicum, adjacent to Karolinska University Hospital in Solna. In addition to a tour of the laboratory and an ensuing reception, several speeches were given on the significance of the new CT laboratory. The following is an excerpt from the speech given by the chief executive officer of Karolinska University Hospital, Björn Zoëga.
“The CT technology that became available during the 1970s opened up a whole new world for us doctors. This, the next stage in development, offers unbounded possibilities. Here at Karolinska University Hospital, in various ways we treat 1.3 million patients every year. Our aim is that the hospital should constantly progress and provide better care and treatment and I believe that we have demonstrated that we can do so. The fact that we are now the first in the world with this new technology also affirms both that Karolinska Institutet is ranked among the best environments for clinical research in the world, and that Karolinska University Hospital is advancing as one of the best hospitals in the world.
Our machinery and its relationship to how we work as Europe’s smartest hospital means that we must constantly move forwards. To do so together with others is a success factor, and the CT laboratory is an excellent example of this. The strength in working together has been made particularly apparent during the pandemic. It means a great deal to the hospital and the hospital’s patients that clinical studies are now underway to ensure that the next generation of computed tomography benefits patients and the health service.”
On Friday 29 October, we inaugurated our new CT laboratory at BioClinicum, adjacent to Karolinska University Hospital in Solna. In addition to a tour of the laboratory and an ensuing reception, several speeches were given on the significance of the new CT laboratory. The following is an excerpt from the speech given by Sigbritt Karlsson, president of KTH Royal Institute of Technology.
“I would like to congratulate all of you who have worked so hard for many years to bring this new instrument here. This is an example of the drive that a researcher must have, to believe in one’s idea and work really hard to realise it. Way back in the early 1980s, when I was a student at KTH, I read a course on medical technology. Today, this field has grown, leading to the establishment of MedTechLabs, as well as to what is now SciLifeLab, a joint effort between ourselves, KI, Uppsala University and Stockholm University. These are fantastic organisations that reveal how crucial engineers are to Swedish and international healthcare.”
“That said, another incredibly important factor is collaboration. There are of course many pressing societal problems that demand solutions, and ideally we would like these yesterday, so it is vital that we have diligent researchers pondering them before the rest of us. And to have this multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary facility, MedTechLabs, constantly developing new equipment, thinking further ahead than we others, this is incredibly important to us all.”
“Because I’m sure we all have people close to us who are ill in various ways and, of course, we want them to have the very best care and the very best technical solutions. Clinical researchers and our researchers at KTH work together to build better diagnostics, something that is essential to reducing suffering and can even extend human life. So, our close collaboration with Karolinska Institutet and Region Stockholm is extraordinarily important. It has provided KTH researchers with a better, patient-centred understanding of the problems and how we need to work in order to solve them.”
“In turn, KTH has worked on the mathematics and physics of this machine. It is this that has made it possible to increase the precision, to increase the resolution. We contribute with biomedical imaging, machine learning and artificial intelligence, techniques that are also necessary to continue this development. Today, MedTechLabs is a well-established platform for cutting-edge medical technology initiatives and we are seeing more and more of these becoming clinical reality, in patient-centred healthcare. Today, we take the next step with this photon-counting imaging technology.”
On Friday 29 October, we inaugurated our new CT laboratory at BioClinicum, adjacent to Karolinska University Hospital in Solna. In addition to a tour of the laboratory and an ensuing reception, several speeches were given on the significance of the new CT laboratory. The following is an excerpt from the speech given by Ole Petter Ottersen, president of Karolinska Institutet.
“Events here today have significance far beyond the equipment and technique in question; in fact, beyond even the patients that they will help. Because this is an example of how this district, our dream team comprising the Region, KTH, KI – MedTechLabs – is on the frontline. And it is this that is so important. So, please allow me to congratulate you again because this has significance. All of our ambitions – whether that be the Region’s ambition to become a leading global life science cluster, KI’s ambition to conduct groundbreaking research or, of course, the ambitions of KTH and the hospital to be among the world’s best – are inextricably linked with this. But let me take you back to 1979, a big year for this technology, when Godfrey Hounsfield and Allan Cormack were awarded the Nobel Prize for their work on computerised tomography.”
“In his Nobel Lecture, Hounsfield explained that the first scan he performed took 10 days! Consider that. He makes no mention of how long the subsequent analysis took. Then there is a marvellously interesting section if his lecture: ‘What improvements should we expect to see in the future?’. Well, one of his greatest dreams was that it might one day be possible to look at the heart, a feat that was completely impossible at the time because, of course, the heart moves. However, when he spoke about how resolution could be improved, he never believed that we would have come as far as we have today. That was beyond his imagination. Now, with silicon-based detectors, we not only achieve much better resolution but we also obtain a great deal more important data from the equipment. Had he been with us today, Hounsfield would have been extremely impressed.”
On Friday 29 October, we inaugurated our new CT laboratory at BioClinicum, adjacent to Karolinska University Hospital in Solna. In addition to a tour of the laboratory and an ensuing reception, several speeches were given on the significance of the new CT laboratory. The following is an excerpt from the speech given by Irene Svenonius Irene Svenonius, regional chair for finance, Region Stockholm:
“We save people’s lives, just as Staffan Holmin says, using new technology the scope of application for which we can perhaps only imagine today. Now that you’re able to use it to help patients and develop it further, it will make a great difference, just as you have done with your treatment of stroke patients. Until now, who could have dreamed of this? It is quite astonishing and something else that you have developed together: Karolinska Institutet, Karolinska University Hospital and KTH. This is a dream partnership and, if I may say so as regional chair for finance at Region Stockholm, I am extremely proud that we as a region have committed to cofinancing MedTechLabs.
I can say that, in my opinion, every krona has been well spent; we are talking about the future of our patients. That said, I shall not disguise the fact that we have major strategic plans for the future of Hagastaden and Region Stockholm as a whole, which is that we intend to become one of the five leading regions for life science research in the world.
Investments like this, and the research that Mats Danielsson and his team have conducted in collaboration with Karolinska Institutet and Karolinska University Hospital, is precisely the cutting-edge knowledge we want the region to stand for and that will carry us forward. While this leads to solutions for patients, my hope is that it will also bring new businesses and new researchers to this unique place. Here, where we in the region together with Karolinska Institutet, and KTH Royal Institute of Technology, which is only a few bus stops away, have invested heavily in research infrastructure, which we of course want to come to use for the patients benefit.
So, on overall, I consider today to be a splendid example of what we wish to achieve in future.”